Chapter 4
For the first three years after John Bergson's death, the
affairs of his family prospered. Then came the hard times that
brought every one on the Divide to the brink of despair; three
years of drouth and failure, the last struggle of a wild soil
against the encroaching plowshare. The first of these fruitless
summers the Bergson boys bore courageously. The failure of the corn
crop made labor cheap. Lou and Oscar hired two men and put in
bigger crops than ever before. They lost everything they spent. The
whole country was discouraged. Farmers who were already in debt had
to give up their land. A few foreclosures demoralized the county.
The settlers sat about on the wooden sidewalks in the little town
and told each other that the country was never meant for men to
live
